The Big Picture - Top Five Murder Mysteries. Plus: Rian Johnson on ‘Knives Out’ | The Big Picture

Episode Date: November 25, 2019

We convene to share our top five murder mystery films and judge the category with ranging specificity (1:15). Then writer-director Rian Johnson joins to discuss ‘Knives Out’—the whodunnit vehicle featuring Chris Evans, Daniel Craig, and Ana de Armas—and how he landed on this film after his role in the 'Star Wars' franchise (32:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Rian Johnson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, guys, and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. Binge Mode made its grand return earlier this month, and Mallory Rubin and Jason Concepcion are deep diving on the Star Wars franchise, covering every movie, the newly released Disney Plus series The Mandalorian, and fan favorite characters. You can check out new episodes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, wherever you get your podcasts. And up on the site, we have more Mandalorian coverage written by Micah Peters, Alison Herman, and Ben Lindberg, as well as staff-wide surveys throughout the season. You can check it all out on TheRinger.com.

I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about who done it, with what, and in which room, and maybe why. Today, we celebrate the murder mystery, and we do so because one of the best murder mysteries in many years opens this week. It's called Knives Out. The writer and director of that movie, Ryan Johnson, will be here later in the show talking with me about this very special creation and what makes a great whodunit. But before we go to that conversation with Ryan, Amanda, this is a very big one for us. You love a whodunit. I really do go to that conversation with Ryan, Amanda, this is a very big one for us. You love a whodunit. I really do.

You love Agatha Christie. I really do. And these are your favorite kinds of movies, barring perhaps a rom-com, I would say. Is that accurate? Certainly up there. An interesting thing about putting this list together is that depending on how you define a whodunit,

there really aren't that many that are made. And it will not surprise anyone to learn that I took a very narrow definition of whodunit, there really aren't that many that are made. And it will not surprise anyone to learn that I took a very narrow definition of whodunit, which is just basically Agatha Christie and people modeling things off of her. To Agatha Christie's credit, she invented an entire genre and a way of telling stories. And there are very specific elements to a whodunit in the Agatha Christie mold that many people have since borrowed. How about that? Paid homage. You are a strict constructionist.

You're the Antonin Scalia of murder mysteries. I have a broader definition. Okay. And my time on the court of the big picture will take a somewhat more liberal look at the murder mystery and the whodunit. Because I think what makes this genre so interesting is that it is fungible. It is malleable. Ryan's movie is very classical. Yes.

There's commentary. There's a metaness to the genre. But it fits the mold and feels very inspired by a lot of the classics that you love. Right. The basic formula is a bunch of people are gathered together in one place, someone dies, and then everyone else is a suspect. And the mystery is about going through everyone's motivations one by one and examining the clues until usually there is a dramatic climactic scene where the detective announces how their crime has been solved. Exactly. Now, two of my five abide by those rules.

And Ryan agrees with you. When we talked about it, he used that framework to build his movie. And I respect that. i respect you and i respect ryan johnson a great deal thank you you guys are both very important to me however i think a murder mystery i'm more interested in the mystery aspect okay than the agatha christie aspect the solving of the case is part of what i'm less interested in candidly okay i think the solving of the case in knives out for example is interesting interested in, candidly. I think the solving of the case in Knives Out, for example, is interesting and satisfying and well done. And we will,

of course, not be spoiling anything about the movie, nor should we really say anything else about it because it's terrific and people should go out and see it. But I like a little bit of ambiguity in my stories. I like a little bit of uncertainty. Do you want to talk about any honorable mentions on your list before you start breaking down your top five? Not really. I honestly, I didn't because I made this difficult for myself because I have such a strict definition that I wouldn't say I was scrounging. I had exactly five, but there aren't 10, I think, perfect ensemble murder mysteries. I also should say I didn't count any of like the many great Agatha Christie TV adaptations.

There are several Poirot's and Miss Marple. There was a great and then there were none a few years ago that was made for TV. And it's like pretty upsetting, but really well made. So and I think I did limit myself to I have two Agatha Christie's two out of five. Not bad, right? Pretty good, I think. So there are many more Agatha Christie adaptations that I enjoy, even if I don't think that they're as great as the ones on my list. Oh, you know what? Here's an interesting one.

I don't have either Murder on the Orient Express on my list. So this is in my honorable mention. Okay. The 1974 murder, which is directed by Sidney Lumet. The Branagh one from a couple years ago. We've talked about it on this show before. I think it's pretty weird. It's weird.

It's weird. It's not. I don't get it at all. It wasn't like terrible. It's just I think it's okay. And I think that the original is a classic and has such a tremendous cast and is a fun movie to watch. It's streaming on Amazon Prime right now. If you're interested in checking it out, I would encourage you to do so. I have a couple more and I have one that I don't want to list because I fear I may spoil your top five. But Laura, the Otto Preminger murder mystery, which is a kind of a noir classic, which does not take place in one place, but has a central mystery at the heart of it that I think is incredible and very influential on a lot of 70s films that I love that maybe I'll talk about here.

Anatomy of a Murder is another Otto Preminger movie starring Jimmy Stewart that is probably in my top 100 films of all time. Incredible, famous jazz score, a great performance by Lee Remick in the movie, by Van Gazzara in the movie. And I wanted to mention Memories of Murder. Yeah, I wondered whether you would do this. I didn't. It's not on my list, but it's a Bong Joon-ho movie and it's been in the news lately. Obviously, Bong has a huge hit with Parasite this year, but Neon just acquired the rights to Memories of Murder, which is his second film and his kind of breakthrough movie, which is more or less a docudrama about the first serial killer in Seoul, South Korea,

and the case and how the detectives came together to investigate and the kind of half-wits that were working on this case, the lack of intelligence and the lack of care put into this investigation, into this unsolved series of murders that has a lot of the hallmarks of some of the best of these movies that is sort of funny and sort of disturbing and clever, but ultimately is not a satisfying film. But there's some feeling that a lot of these murders have been solved since the release of this movie. Neon acquiring the rights means you'll be able to buy this movie on Blu-ray

and by you, I mean me. And I look forward to getting a chance to revisit it soon. I'll wait on my other honorable mention. Should we dive into our top five? Yeah, let's do it. What's number five for you? Number five is Evil Under the Sun, which is a 1982 British adaptation of a great Agatha Christie novel. It's one of the ones I recommend. It's a pretty fun one.

It's set in the book. I believe it's a pretty fun one. It's set in the book. I believe it's in the Adriatic and it's on an island. There's a fantastic hotel where a bunch of people have gathered. And in the film, it's filmed in Majorca on location. Thank you.

And there are a lot of people who seemed a bit to know each other, but there is one very famous person, Arlena Marshall, who used to be a stage actress. She's since remarried. Everyone has a motivation against her. She does, in fact, die. And then it's an Hercule Poirot who done it. Hercule Poirot is played by Peter Ustinov, who is my favorite Hercule Poirot. And what I like about this beyond the basic, it checks a lot of the location and aesthetic boxes.

There are weird, there's a cocktail hour every night and there are weird like song and dance numbers. There's really just one. It's music of Cole Porter that scores the entire film. But it is also in on the joke. It's not a super serious thing. It's not like there has been a grave murder. I mean, someone definitely dies. Someone is murdered.

But there's not a huge amount of hand-wringing about it, which I suppose is an insensitive thing to say. But I did find the common theme throughout my list is that no one is taking it too seriously. That it is more about solving the crime. And the solution itself, there's like a classic Poirot in the drawing room of the hotel. Just, you know, there's a, I won't spoil it, but there's a watch that's changed and a bathtub and some identities that are changed and someone turns out to be who you didn't think they were. And it's like eight different steps. And it's ridiculous, but also pretty entertaining. So I haven't seen this one. I know it's considered one of the all-time greats. In fact, I think Rian Johnson may have mentioned it when we were talking. And I look forward to watching it.

I'm going to track it down. It's the second Christie adaptation that Guy Hamilton directed, I think after The Mirror Cracked, which stars Angela Lansbury. And he's a notable figure in part because of some recent podcasting we may have done where he directed

four very classic Bond movies. He made Goldfinger, Diamonds Are Forever, Live and Let Die, and The Man with the Golden Gun. And he's pretty good, Guy Hamilton.

Very sort of like workman-like, you know, not necessarily showy, but knows how to handle a big scene very well. So I look forward to checking that one out. My number five is called The Last of Sheila. Have you seen The Last of Sheila? I haven't. I've read about it.

Great movie. This is sort of an American interpretation of an Agatha Christie story. It's directed by Herbert Ross, famously written by Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins. Sure, why not? It was referenced recently on this show by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski. Scott Alexander said it's one of the scripts he's most jealous of in movie history.

And it similarly takes place all in one place. It's all in a boat. Sheila is murdered. And we have to figure out who done it. And it's got a hell of a cast. It's James Coburn, James Mason, Diane Cannon, Raquel Welch, among many others. It's sort of a perfect time capsule of 70s pop Hollywood and razor sharp script. Very funny.

Sort of malevolent. There's something very dark in between the seams on this one. And it just feels representative of a period in movie history that I miss. Knives Out gave me the same feeling. Like, why are there not just not more things like this? You know, why is there not just more active cleverness in my movie? That's something I seek. I think there are a lot of great movies out this year. There have been plenty of great movies out in the last 10 years. But that hyper-intelligence mixed with charm is rare. Why is that? I don't know. This is a good segue to my number four, which is Knives Out. Okay. Amazing. Because the fact of like, it is so rare. And again,

it's a very specific formula that I've identified. And it seems like Rian Johnson and I are on the same page about it. Shout out to Rian Johnson. But there is also, you don't get that many movies when you have just a killer cast. I mean, no pun intended, but I guess also pun intended. Nice. A lot of people you like in one place that because it's one place can usually be like a location or at least looks really nice and is really well designed. Just being kind of snippy at one another because one of the one of the tenets of this formula is that everybody has a motive. Everybody hates each other and you aren't supposed to know who actually did it until the very end.

So everyone has like kind of a well sketched but pretty specific character. Everyone else everyone gets one scene yelling at somebody else. Everyone gets a moment of being in doubt where you think, oh, it's that person. And everyone gets to have a little fun, which I don't know. We don't make that many movies where a lot of people get to be in a room talking and yelling each other and having fun. You just did something I've never seen on a Top 5 podcast, which is you took the peg. Yeah. And you put it in your Top 5. I know, but I spent a lot of time wondering and I had some other things in there and I was like,

no, screw this. I respect it. It's really good. I think it's great. It's a genuinely great movie. And I think it's another intelligence test movie where it's like, if you tell me you didn't like it, I'm a little suspicious of you. Yeah. My number four is not'm a little suspicious of you. Yeah. My number four is not exactly a romp.

Okay. It's called The Staircase. Oh, the... Have you seen The Staircase? Yeah, the TV show. The docu-series? Oh, jeez. But that's true crime.

So true crime is eligible for this? Well, we're making up the rules as we go. I guess so. In many ways, it has all of the hallmarks of a whodunit. Right. There is a murder in a home. The bulk of, it has all of the hallmarks of a whodunit. Right. There is a murder in a home. The bulk of the

investigation takes place in the home. There are a lot of clues compiled. Okay. There is a Poirot figure in the film and in the lawyer,

David. There is a great deal of uncertainty. There's cleverness. There's depth of character. There's potentially something under the

surface about the evil that men do or women do. It's immensely suspenseful. And really, I think, in a lot of ways, invented the true crime, like what was once a boomlet and now is an everlasting boom in our culture. I mean, true crime in nonfiction format, in podcast format, in recreation, the sort of docudramas that you'll find on made three additional episodes for Netflix a couple of years ago, which I don't think really got us where we needed to go. And, in fact, the unsolved, unclear nature of the original series, I think, is part of what's so appealing about it. Anyone who has not seen this before, I would highly encourage you to watch it. It does require a great deal of time to invest in it. It originally aired, I think, on Sundance TV in the States 15 years ago. But it is riveting.

I think it's fascinating and really well made. It's great television. The idea that it's unsolved is interesting to me. Well, I mean... No, I mean, you're allowed. You're making up your own genre,

but I... Where do you stand on the owl theory? Are you familiar with the owl theory? No, what is that? Well, I'll let the listeners watch the show and hit the Reddit boards to investigate the owl theory? No, what is that? Well, I'll let the listeners watch the show and hit the Reddit boards to investigate the owl theory. Sure, but even their conspiracy theories or people have different interpretations.

It's open-ended. And I think the one thing that I really like about the whodunits and Agatha Christie's, and no one needs to armchair psychoanalyze me because I'm already doing it myself, but there's a clear outcome. There is one thing that happened and you know there's going to be a solution and they're going to lay it out for you. And I find that very comforting. Would you take it as an insult if I occasionally referred to you as homework on this show? If your nickname was homework?

No, I mean, it's, I don't take it as an insult. I blame my parents for it. But yes, it's how I was raised. I was an insult. I blame my parents for it. But yes, it's how I was raised. I was watching the debates the other day and Elizabeth Warren raised her hand and I was like, oh, she raises her hand like me. So, you know, I'm doing my best to break rules and break out of it every single day. But I do like to do my homework. I feel like you've stopped raising your hand on podcasts. You would be literally recording a podcast and raise your hand to speak. I do that in meetings sometimes too. Sometimes I just, I was trained to do it. And that's how also when you're a young girl in

a large group, they teach you to be very assertive about raising your hand so you can be heard. So I'm just doing my best to be heard. You may be heard with number three. What's your number three? Okay, thank you. My number three is Rear Window. I thought about this. Which is not a traditional whodunit and it's not an Agatha Christie. It's made by a man named Alfred Hitchcock. Maybe you've heard of him. This is a good pick. But it has so many of the hallmarks. It takes place, it's in one place.

There are a bunch of characters who you know very little about, but they're each, like, super developed, and you're spectating everyone else. And the camera is, like, really panning through all of developed and you're spectating everyone else. And the camera is like really panning through all of the different apartments, often as you do in an Agatha Christie novel of like, you know, this person was doing this and this person was doing that. It is also in terms of how the crime is solved. It is really old school. Let's do the psychology of whether the woman would take the handbag and would she leave the jewelry and then even when you know he is like taking the picture of the flower bed and comparing the two photographs and like do you notice those two flowers are different that that's old school act christy stuff so it fits uh it scratches a lot of those itches and then it's also obviously

one of the great films of i mean it feels dumb to be putting rear window at number three i understand that. No. Especially when I look at my number two and number one, I'm like, this is an insult to cinema. Well, I think it speaks to your definition of it because I think it does ultimately fulfill the rules. There are a number of disparate characters. Someone has been murdered. The identity of the murderer is unclear. There is a kind of detective figure in Jimmy Stewart's character in the movie who is, even though he is wheelchair bound, is attempting to solve the crime.

Yes. I think it fits your mold. That's why I picked it. You know, I didn't pick this, but I also thought about Rope, the Hitchcock movie, which also is about a murder. There's a body buried in a house somewhere, in an apartment, actually. And there are a great number of people who know each other, communicating throughout an entire

sort of social engagement during one, all in one night. That is meant to seem as if it's all in one shot. And I think also would fit that Agatha Christie style definition, but I didn't pick it. My number three is Zodiac. I assumed that this would happen.

Zodiac is one of the greatest films ever made. You love Zodiac. I assumed that this would happen. Zodiac is one of the greatest films ever made. You love Zodiac. I have spoken about it on many a podcast. It does a lot of the things that I think that you want from this. This sort of the puzzle making, the who is the real detective of this story aspect of the movie, the who was the real killer and the pursuit of something. I think what's most interesting to me about the movie, who was the real killer and the pursuit of something and then trying to understand. I think what's most interesting to me about the movie

is obviously obsession and then why you become obsessed with a story or a case or a murder or anything like it. It is not a strictly defined whodunit. But we still don't know

whodunit. I mean, someone done it. Doesn't that make you crazy? Well, certainly. Right, and I know that's the part of the movie. I get it, but I just Doesn't that make you crazy? Well, certainly. Right. And I know that's the part of the movie. I get it. But I just. Life is all about the unknowable. You tell me that once a week and I just really don't appreciate it. It's just a fact. Well, I'm trying to make it less unknowable. I have no idea what you're going to say for number two. And

what you could do if you wanted to is you could tell me something that's not written down on your sheet, but I would believe that you wrote it down. You know what this one is. It's Gosford Park. Yes, I did. I walked in on you watching this film in our office yesterday. So I knew that was coming. I mean, this is pretty obvious because it is both quite literally a bunch of really famous British people at a beautiful country home, which is the setting for a lot of the

Agatha Christie things. And Agatha Christie is clearly an inspiration for it. An all-star cast. And then it does subvert the genre a bit. It does the same thing where everyone has a motivation and a really unlikable guy is the person who gets killed. The solution and how it's arrived at is slightly different. And this is one where there is

a bit more emotional heft or maybe not emotional heft, but like moral weight to what's going on in it. But it's also just a really great Robert Altman film with a script by Julian Fellows. Sign me up.

I love it. Brilliant movie. Yeah. Huge fan. Could have made a good case for winning Best Picture or did not win Best Picture. My number two is The Big Sleep. Okay.'s it's on here for the same reason that zodiac is on here okay it's because i don't understand what happens in the big sleep okay

it's a it's definitely it's immensely confusing um it's of course a humphrey bogart and lauren mccall movie my wife and i have a long-standing love affair with their love affair love the movies that they made together. I don't think it's necessarily the best movie that they made together, but it is the movie that they made together that I like the most. It has a, you know, it's directed by Howard Hawks, came out in 1946. It has some of the hallmarks of the genre. Right.

It mostly takes place in a couple of locations. It has a Poirot figure at its center and Philip Marlowe. It features a very wealthy family and someone who's gone missing. It has some of those classical things. What it has that not all movies like this have is a great backstory about the difficulty of putting the script together, which was written by Jules Fuhrman and Lee Brackett. Lee Brackett, who also got some credits in some Star Wars films 35, 40 years later. And William Faulkner.

Yes, who is known for his narrative clarity. Yes. And so perhaps Faulkner's contributions. Please don't at me about that. Okay, William Faulkner is a great writer. Yeah. And, you know, I think if you're a fan of the film Barton Fink and you look at the John Mahoney character, the sort of southern author figure who's come to Hollywood to pay off some of his debts while drinking himself to death. Some reflections on Faulkner and that character, particularly Faulkner at this time as he's trying to figure out how to adapt Raymond Chandler novels and

Dashiell Hammett novels for the screen. But it's that inability to put your finger on what the fuck is going on that I love. Because you get movie brain after a while. You watch enough movies and you're like, I know exactly where this movie's going. And it's not fun. It's not interesting to me. I find that easier because then I'm like, I know where this is going. And so I can pay attention to the smaller things because I know the beats. But we're different. We've talked about it. You love the unknowable. So I'm going with The Big Sleep.

Okay. For a great many reasons. I love The Big Sleep. I just, I didn't do noirs for this reason, because then that opens up a whole other things. And again, I am being an originalist. Off you go. What a great movie. Off you go, Scalia.

My number one is Death on the Nile which is also Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poirot it's 1978 directed by John Gillerman written by Anthony Schaeffer

let me read the cast to you besides Ustinov as Hercule Poirot okay Jane Birkin Lois Charles Betty Davis

Mia Farrow skipping some people Angela whatever there's like 40,000 people in it. Angela Lansbury, Simon McCorkendale, David Niven, Maggie Smith. Death on the Nile. I have expressed some concerns about the upcoming adaptation about Death on the Nile already on this podcast, but just so you know, it's on the Nile, so it's set in Egypt. And this movie is filmed in the 70s in Egypt. There's an amazing, ridiculous scene of Lois Childs who plays, again, actually both of the Agatha Christie's that I picked are rich women that everyone hates.

And then they die. Hmm. I don't really know what that's about. The Last of Sheila has some similar hallmarks. So Lois Childs is a rich heiress who steals her friend's boyfriend in Simon McCorkindale. And then they go on their honeymoon to Egypt. And then everyone else in the movie joins them on their honeymoon on a steamer. But they're like riding on horseback to see the pyramids.

They're just everywhere in all of these amazing ancient sites in Egypt. The mystery itself is probably one of the not quite plausible, but it's not super complicated. It's just clever enough. And then it's Jane Birkin, Mia Farrow, Angela Lansbury and Maggie Smith and Betty Davis all just like yelling at each other and sniping in like evening wear on a riverboat on the Nile. It's amazing. I don't understand why these movies are not more readily accessible. I don't either. I had this, I tried to find the DVD for you. This is one of like five DVDs I own, but I don't know where it is. We looked in the cord bag and it

wasn't there. So it could be anywhere. I bought the DVDs, but what I wanted to do is buy the Blu-rays. Yeah. Can't get them. Also not streaming anywhere. I did find a Egyptian rip on Vimeo of this film, which I watched, which I enjoyed. I liked it. It's great. I don't know how I know about this movie because it was modestly successful at best. PBS maybe when we were growing up? I don't even know. I honestly think that I was just kind of an Agatha Christie nerd as a little kid. And so someone put me down in front of it when I was young. Someone found it on VHS or something. And then I became obsessed with it. But it's like I have two movie posters hanging in my office, Bridget Jones Diary and this original poster for Death on the Nile. I love this movie. It's a sentimental favorite for me. Do you have an

Agatha Christie book top five? Wow. Off the top of my head? So Death on the Nile is definitely on it. I think Murder on the Orient Express, you just kind of have to. There's one, I think it's Murder on the Blue Train or Death on the Blue Train. You know, she's got only so many title constructs. I really like the ABC murders. That's a very famous one. Has that ever been adapted? I believe so, but I think for TV. Okay. And then, gosh, what else would I put on there?

I think I really like the Seven Dials mystery, though I can't really remember what happened in it at this moment. There's a golf course one that I remember being pretty good, like on the links or something. Just FYI, I'm just trying to get your interest because I noticed that you were dozing off. I'm not dozing off. I'm deeply engaged. I tend to like the ones from the 20s to the 40s. After that, she gets a little cranky. I see the murder on the links from 1923. Yes. gets a little cranky. I see The Murder on the Links.

Yes. From 1923. Yes. I'm excited about that. Maybe I'll check that one out. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is a classic. I won't tell you about the twist, but there's a twist. Okay.

I have a whole bookshelf devoted to these because I collect the old. They're very cool old editions of, you know, she's hugely bestselling. So they're like very cool airport paperbacks from the 70s that I try to buy at used bookstores. And I have like a lot of them now. They're great. So the honorable mention that I didn't list. Yeah. That I thought didn't think you would list, but I need to mention is Clue.

Yeah. Which is a beloved movie, beloved by me. You didn't put this on the list. Well, maybe I should. Maybe I should just rerecord this whole podcast. Yeah. Which is a beloved movie, beloved by me. I can't believe that you didn't put this on the list. Well, maybe I should just re-record this whole podcast. Okay. Clue is not really a whodunit. It's a commentary. It's a parody of whodunits. It's immensely well done.

It's a beloved cult classic. Very fun movie. All-time Tim Curry performance in it. I like it. I re-watched it recently and I had a great time rewatching it, my wife and I. It's just not, whereas Knives Out is aware of the

murder mystery whodunit framing and is commenting on it, it doesn't exist to comment on it. It exists to be unto itself. Yes. And Clue only exists to be IP in a way. It is a board game come to life and the title cards feature, you know, Miss Scarlet and Professor Plum and all the archetypes that you find in the game. It's very well done version of Towne are convening for a 10-episode Netflix series that is a prequel to Chinatown.

I'm extremely pro. I just cannot believe, like, I thought Uncut Gems was like someone came and they split my head open and they scooped my brain out and then they were like, can we make the brain into celluloid? This feels even more so like that. robert town has not written something in many years i hope he still is the great writer that he once was the great deconstructionist and reconstructionist of um detective themes and murder mystery themes i just was you know moseying around youtube last night re-watching scenes between jack Nicholson and John Houston in the movie. It's just one of the best things ever committed to movies. And like a lot of my picks, which are in some ways the inverse of your picks, they're subversions of the genre. And the solving of the mystery is never as important as what it belies about our dead and unknowable

nature as human beings. So we are truly being ourselves. I was going to say this is the most on-brand podcast that we've done yet. Yes. That's nice. Do you like Chinatown? Of course. I'm going to sit here and be like, no, I don't like Chinatown.

You can be like, it's fine. No, it's one of the great movies. I finally rewatched it, I think, last year after having moved to L.A., which is fascinating. Makes so much more sense once you understand the landscape yeah and it just kind of I mean it is fun to just be like oh I know where that is but it just completely develops how you watch the movie and also how you think about living in Los Angeles no I think it's fantastic I think I just have like a separate detective movie category in in my brain and it goes in that and then I have like you know my weird Agatha Christie hobby and for in my life, I get to share my Agatha Christie hobby.

If the Fincher 10-part miniseries is someone scraping your brain, the Knives Out in a lot of ways is like really someone scraping my brain. It's very weird that there is someone else who wanted to make like a strict Agatha Christie movie with Daniel Craig and Chris Evans. Like I would not have expected that there was any other human on the planet. I have not ever met Rian Johnson, but we're apparently friends. It's wild. Not only is there someone else, there's someone who just made a Star Wars movie. I know.

That wants to do it. So, we're living in extraordinary times. We all contain multitudes, you know? We certainly do. Any other lingering celebration of the murder mystery that you want to note before we move on? I wish they would make more of them. It's such a great format. I don't understand why people have abandoned genre. And maybe it's because everyone's like you and they don't want to know what's happening and don't like, you know, formulas and don't want to work inside the lines or whatever. But that's not what it is. I don't know. But it's just it's a way to get a lot of famous people in a room. And there's certainly if there is an interest in true crime, then just sell it as a as a

murder mystery. People interpret that in different ways, as we have learned on this podcast. People have been selling me a little bit of late on murder mystery. The Adam Sandler, Jennifer Aniston vehicle from earlier this year. Did you watch it? I did watch it. There were some things about it that I liked. I wouldn't say a great many things.

I think when it first became, you became aware of it, you were like, hell yeah, this is for me. Yes. And also my husband uncharacteristically, like basically called me on the phone to be like, have you seen the trailer for Murder Mystery? It's about our lives. And I was like, I'm not aware that we're going on a yacht to solve a murder mystery, but I'm excited about it as well. I think it's a story about a New York City police officer and his hairdresser wife.

Yeah. And their unhappy marriage. Yeah. And how they find themselves on a yacht when a murder happens. Yes. That's the plot of Murder Mystery, right? Yes, it is. That is your life? No. I think that my husband was just like, oh, Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston made an Agatha Christie movie on a yacht. Seems like we're going to like this. And I was like, yes. And then we watched it. And the first 20 minutes is sort of CBS sitcom gender relations. And I was like, oh, this is depressing. And then

they get to the yacht and it's filmed on location, I think, because I think Adam Sandler does avail himself of the travel privileges of being Adam Sandler. I do believe it's in Monaco. Right. So that's fantastic. And I do think Jennifer Aniston is a great comic actress, as I have now said 45,000 times while defending The Morning Show, which is not really a comedy at all. Not intentionally, anyway. I just think that it's – I wouldn't say Murder Mystery is particularly clever, even as it's sending up a lot of the tenets of the genre. It's just kind of like it's playing it for broad laughs. Yeah, I didn't dislike it. It just wouldn't crack my top 20. Amanda, thank you so much for sharing your true

homework accomplishing self. You don't have to be rude about it. It's entirely a compliment. Please stick around to hear my interview with Ryan johnson coming up right now very delighted to have ryan johnson back on the show ryan thanks for being here thank you so much for having me ryan you have a new film it's called knives out um it's a who it's a whodunit but i have a theory i want to pitch your way i feel like all of your films are whodunits in a way interesting has anyone kicked that your way yet uh not really. How do you mean? Well, I think that there's kind of like a mystery box element to a lot of the films. And even if it's projected, certainly Brick, obviously, it's a detective story.

Yeah. Brothers Bloom, you got kind of a con artist thing. You're trying to look at who is ultimately behind the schemes in the film. Yeah, I could see it. Looper, who's responsible for the things that have happened to these characters. Yeah. Jedi. Jedi, a little debatable.

Yeah. But I think there was so much, I don't know, Rey, Kylo, Origins. Let's try to figure out something that maybe isn't their questioning. Got it. Do you see that as a theme running

throughout your work or is that just something that someone like me is pitching at you? That's all you, man. Okay. No, I don't know. No, it's interesting. I know I can see what you're saying with it. I mean, to me, I don't know. Yeah. I, I, I'm to me, like for instance, with brick, you know, which was like much more of a film noir type thing. Um, that's a very, to me, that's night and day from, uh, a whodunit that the only thing they have in common is the

word detective. Um detective but it's interesting to me the way that they're different you know i think the uh the film noir is all about moral ambiguity and whodunits have zero moral ambiguity it's all about the benevolent detective coming in and setting everything back to its proper proper moral order at the end of the movie it's almost like comfort a comfort food fairy tale genre, sort of. So that's interesting though. No, I don't know. I guess there is kind of an element of mystery or withholding in all the films, but that's ultimately not what I'm, I don't know, that's not what I'm really actually interested in. So yeah, I don't know. Maybe that's just a

byproduct of keeping it dramatic. Is that lack of ambiguity, that sort of direct nature, part of why you wanted to make a movie like this? Yeah, I've always loved whodunits. I've always loved the genre. That's a big element of why. It's just that kind of, I think there was just something comforting about it. But it's also, they're big fun. They're fun movies. We all grew up kind of watching them. You know, I wanted to make a movie that took place in a big murder mystery mansion with a big colorful family and the patriarchs murdered, like the library is there, like it's all the elements from a clue board that we grew up with are all there. But then I wanted to take that and apply it to 2019 America and not shy away from that. Really dig into all the stuff that Agatha Christie kind of used the genre for in terms of plugging into British society when she was writing. Let's do

that right now in America. So I think that there is an interesting generational divide in terms of the whodunit. I think a lot of people that are my age, maybe younger than my age, grew up on Murder by Death and Clue, which is essentially commentaries on this understood form. And parodies, really. Yeah. Yeah. And This Isn't That is a very funny movie. Yeah.

But it is more classical in that way. That was something I had to make really, really clear when we were showing the script around and also when I was starting to work with the actors is because you're right. I think that is the frame of reference is Clue. I love Clue. I love Murder by Death. But they are parodies of whodunits and i want to make really clear this is going to be hopefully funny it's going to have kind of like a self a cheeky sense of

self-awareness but it's also really important that we're making uh we're making a whodunit about something else not a parody a whodunit it's a parody of whodunits um something else, not a parody. A whodunit, it's a parody of whodunits. And that's like a weirdly fine line to watch. I think it, to walk, I think it, I think it ultimately comes down to just sort of making the movie, making sure that it, it, it, it lands emotionally and that it works on multiple levels beyond just the puzzle box element of it. I don't know, that was really important for me. I know that you started writing this, you've said like 10 years ago, but so much of what's in the movie, the commentary that what you noted about using the Agatha Christie setup to kind of talk about the world now, it feels like

you wouldn't have been able to foresee that 10 years ago. Did the story change a lot in that way? Did the tone of the script change a lot over time? I mean, a little bit. I had the basic idea for it about 10 years ago, which was kind of like just the, not even the plot, but just the shape of the story, basically. But I mean, yeah, it does. I mean, the movie kind of, you know,

in the context of it being like a big fun movie, basically, it's not like a message movie. It's not like a political message movie. It's a big fun whodunit. But then it does have these things layered into it that it has a perspective on in terms of, of the current political stuff. And that all predated the current unpleasantness, like the stuff about one of the main characters in it, Marta, who Anna de Armas plays. She's an immigrant, and that plays very much into her relationship with this family and how she fits in. And that stuff predated the election definitely in terms of its place in the story. attack from a variety of the political spectrum, the idea of privilege and not just how, not just how the conservative end does it, but also how, you know, liberals like myself are,

are completely culpable of it and how it, at the end of the day, it's, it's very tied into kind of the myth-making of the American dream and the notion that we'd like to kind of pretend that class doesn't exist and pretend that there's an even playing field. And if I got here and you're not here, it's because I'm somehow worked harder and better than you, which I may have. I may have worked very hard, but somehow conforming your, you know, telling your narrative so that you ignore the inherent biases in the game, in the game board, I guess. Yeah. You give Don Johnson's character a couple of opportunities to say things that we've heard a lot of people say recently. Yeah. And that part of just saying it, there's a, I don't know. Yeah. We decided to not be subtle, but I feel like that almost,

you know, again, cause I didn't want this. This isn't like a, you know, it's not a brow beating message movie. It's something that, and, and, and in a way just putting all this stuff on the table and it's about a family in 2019. And what all of us, what are we arguing about with our family after a few glasses of wine in 2019? It's all this stuff. So let's put it up on the screen in a way that's slightly ridiculous and that we can all kind of laugh at. Yeah, it's kind of perfect that it's coming out on Thanksgiving. It is really the awkward family conversation is a key signal of this.

It'll be a relief. You can take a break from your family and come hang out with ours. What are the signature things in a whodunit or a murder mystery that you felt like this needed to have? Is there like a checklist? Sort of. Yeah. I mean, there's the things that I really love about it just in terms of the stuff. It's the, you know, you need kind of a beautiful location that also is contained and

that all these characters are there with a relationship to each other then you have your questioning scene at the beginning where you're getting to know everyone through interrogating them and they're getting caught out in their lives the other interesting thing is with that you know kind of the first act of an agatha christie book um you know we do it a little different but typically with her you meet the person who you know, we do it a little different, but typically with her, you meet the person who you know is going to get murdered, usually a powerful person. And then you meet kind of the rogues gallery of people underneath them who all have motivations to murder them. The interesting thing Christie does is usually your sympathies do not lie with the person

who's going to get killed. Usually that person is a rich jerk. Usually she does this very Hitchcock thing where like, you're, you're actually kind of like with each of the mode, you have to buy into the motivations of each of these people. You have to believe it. And that means you have to identify in some way with each of these motivations. So it's very interesting thing in, in, in Christie's books. And then the big other thing I wanted is one of my favorite types of scenes in, in all the fiction, which is the denou thing I wanted is one of my favorite types of scenes in all of fiction,

which is the denouement, like the scene at the end where the detective puts it all together in the library. I knew I wanted that scene. And Daniel Craig gets a barn burner of a scene. Yeah, let's talk about Benoit Blanc. Such a great creation.

And I feel like the movie itself is on this knife's edge of a self-awareness about what this genre is, but also driving unto itself, being its own creative thing, trying to modernize this thing in a very distinct way. Just tell me about creating that character and what characters you were looking at to kind of model him after and then how Daniel kind of came into the mix. Yeah. I mean, he, he plays, you know, basically like the eccentric private detective. He's like the Poirot of the movie, um, which actually messed me up a little at the beginning because I I'm such a big Poirot fan. I was coming at it from the not very productive place of, Oh, I have to make a version of Poirot. And so I just, and I started creating this character with just all these ridiculous quirks and it was just terrible. It was like, what are some things you tried i was like ah these are different glasses each time does he have hearing aids you have a does he have a eye patch does he have you know uh and so at the end of the day i threw all that stuff out thank god and i just i wrote the character really

straightforward and said i gave him a southern accent because i figured he'll be a little fish out of water and in north in new england uh and then i just figured i'll cast a great actor and we'll you know collaborate on figuring out who this guy is and um daniel was very game for that and so he came in and we didn't you know we didn't adjust the dialogue we didn't do a ton of improv or anything but he really found how to inhabit that character with the sort of self-inflated slight clownishness while still keeping him a character, I guess. Was the movie different in terms of the making of it than you imagined? Because, you know, you get this great location,

you have this amazing cast. I want to ask you a little bit more about them too. But in terms of executing this exact kind of thing, which you clearly, I feel like you see these movies in your head quite clearly. What surprised you about trying to pull something like this off? I mean, I'm trying to think if there were any like big surprises. It was a pretty smooth shoot. I mean, the thing that surprised me most is how fast the whole thing came together. It was, it was blazingly fast with this one, which I think helped it. You know,

I started writing the script January of last year and we had wrapped the movie by Christmas. It was blazingly fast with this one, which I think helped it. You know, I started writing the script January of last year, and we had wrapped the movie by Christmas. It was so quick, which I've been told since then that Agatha Christie used to write her books really quickly. And it kind of makes sense to me. Like, if you have something this complex, there's value to being able to kind of hold the whole thing in your head and then push the whole thing out very quickly instead of getting lost in the weeds with it but no there were no huge i mean we just i don't know it was a oddly smooth shoot and the um on set i was constantly trying to just stay kind of tuned in and make sure at every step that we were presenting the information as simply as possible for the audience. And that included the step of like, if the actors are having trouble saying it, or if

they can't quite get their head around a specific thing, I would get in. I wouldn't try and talk them into doing it the way it's written. I would get in and adjust it to try and make it make sense for them. But yeah, there were no big like, oh my God, I never could have foreseen that. It kind of, I don't know, it kind of clicked together. Maybe that just means you're good at your job. I don't know about that. So as far as the cast, I've always wondered about this with certain kinds of films.

Now, on the one hand, I think everybody that is in the film is perfectly cast. On the other hand, many of these actors are iconic figures who have fan bases that are drawn from other places. So obviously Captain America is in this movie and James Bond is in this movie and Laurie Strode is in this movie and Sonny Crockett is in this movie. And there's like an iconography to a lot of the figures. Plus you've got, you know, Michael Shannon and the star of 13 Reasons Why. You have all these well-known figures. In terms of putting a movie like this together, how much of that goes into the casting process where you figure, well, I know that people are going to be really interested in what Chris Evans is doing. And also he's right for the part. And is there, if there's another person who's right for the part, how do we make that

decision? Or do you have the freedom as a filmmaker to just choose who you want? Well, I mean, with this, it was kind of both at the same time because, you know, besides Agatha Christie's books, one of the big targets I was aiming at was the movies that I grew up watching of her books, which for me were the ones of Peter Euston Office Poirot. So Death on the Nile, Evil Under the Sun, you know, also like the Finney Murder on the Orient Express. And one thing about those was they were blatant statements of this is an all-star cast. It's kind of a throwback to sort of the, you know, it's an all-star cast. It's a grand entertainment.

But they were making that statement of this is going to be a big show that we're going to put on. And every person who comes on the screen is going to be a famous person that you're going to say, ooh, I like that person. And I very consciously wanted to emulate that with this. That was just a pleasure of the genre that I wanted to capture. So it was very, um, is a very conscious decision to cast up each of these roles as much as we could. Um, and then of course, um, because it isn't murder by death because it is, um, an actual movie, you, you then have to just cast great actors who are also right for the part, but holding those two things in balance was kind of the goal from the very start. Why do you think there are fewer versions of these kinds of movies right now? I don't know. I want there to be more. I want there to be more. I love

whodunits. I think there are good ones being made. I really loved, I really dug Branagh's Murder on the Orient Express, I thought. And then, you know, a lot of them are going to TV. You know, there's, you know, the Murders with Malkovich was on TV. That's right. It was very good. There was a Crooked House with Glenn Close that I really liked. I mean, I really enjoyed the Sandler one that was on Netflix. It's more of a Sandler comedy than a whodunit, but I really loved it.

I thought it was really funny. So I don't know. Yeah, a lot of them go to TV. I would be thrilled if there were more of them made for the big screen. I think it's such a fun and malleable genre. Yeah, I had Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander. Oh, I love those guys. They're great.

I was talking to them recently about Death Trap. It's a movie that we both love. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Scott was talking to me about The Last of Sheila, which also is in that kind of like all-star cast-y. It's kind of in the spirit of your film in a lot of ways. Yeah. But it's surprising to me that even though they're not, it's not rechargeable IP necessarily, it feels like the kind of thing that should be routinely drawing people, but maybe television is,

is the place for a lot of it. I guess so. But you know, things go in cycles also. Maybe we'll, maybe two years from now we'll be sitting down and saying, Oh my God, there's nothing but whodunits,

glutting the market. It's very true. When are we going to stop with the whodunits glutting the market. That's very true. When are we going to stop with the whodunits? I mean, that would be good news for Knives Out. I think that would mean you kicked something off. That would be a good indication, yeah. Did you feel like making something like this was a salve from coming out of a big IP experience on Star Wars?

No, not at all. Yeah, no, my experience on Star Wars was, yeah, it was fabulous. It was just wonderful top to bottom. And even the bigness of it, you know, I loved the bigness of it. It was not like a huge weight on my shoulders. It was more like, I don't know, it was more like, I would make the analogy of the robots in Pacific Rim. It was a big machine, but it perfectly served what you want it to do. And so that was my experience of it at least. And ultimately in a way that made it feel intimate. It felt like an intimate, creative, personal process that was weirdly not that different at all from the other films I've made

from my experience on smaller movies. What about working faster? That was the big difference with this is the speed of it. Because I was leading up to, so Star Wars was a great experience, but it was four years making one movie. And a solid year of prepping the movie, which you need because of the logistics of it. But God, it felt so good to make this one really quick and just put it out there. And just to be kind of, you know, yeah, I don't know, engaging on that fast on the ground level again. There was something really nice about that. That and this being a very dialogue movie were the two dialogue based movie or the two things that were the big differences.

How much are you thinking about how many movies you want to be able to accomplish in your career? Oh, I can't. I'm just I'll keep going until they catch me. But like, will you want to work in more contained time periods so that you can make more things? I mean, do you have a ton of ideas that you want to get through? Hell yeah. I mean, I don't have like a bank, but I'm just like, yeah, I want to make Hey, Well, the Sun Shines, man.

And who knows how long I'll be able to get away with this, you know? I mean, there are very few filmmakers who get to keep going their whole lives, making movies and being prolific. And I don't assume I'll be one of them. So I want to get as many of these done while I can do it. Is it hard to get a movie like Knives Out made even relative to 10 years ago? It wasn't for us. And I'm sure that's just very specific circumstances that led to that. But, I mean, look, any movie that gets made is a small miracle. But specifically with Knives Out, it clicked together really easily. It was definitely easier than, you know, Looper or Brothers Bloom, you know, to put together.

It was something that came together really quick. What do you attribute that to? Well, I don't know. I mean, I think that, I mean, ultimately it's because Daniel Craig signed up for it. But it also, you know, it's not IP per se, but it's a whodunit, which is kind of a recognizable thing. People weren't like, what is this crazy thing? How are we going to sell it? No, it's like a fun whodunit.

Once we got Daniel on board, that began a snowball of accumulating this great cast, which really helped. And, you know, I'm sure coming off of Star Wars didn't hurt. And there were just a lot of things that lined up that helped it come together pretty easily. You've been pretty candid about the aftermath of the Star Wars stuff and some of the negative criticism. It feels like you might have filtered some of it into the script of this movie. No. I wonder if that's something that you have done in the past and if you feel like it's an outlet

or a creative catharsis in some ways too. I don't want to spoil necessarily what you do. What did it put in there? Well, and I should say that it's not, you know, the stuff that's in the movie is less like a specific dig against the Star Wars stuff. It's more just I'm on the internet. And anyone who's on the internet, there is just a slice of the internet that's this sort of – it's not even about liking something or not liking something. It's a specific slice that does this gamified version of abuse.

And it really is just – You see the patterns of it. That's one interesting thing over the past few years is seeing it becomes so boring so quickly because it's not even offensive anymore. It's just boring because it's the exact same people doing the exact same thing over and over. And you realize, oh, no, this is kind of like a version of an online game for them.

And I'll also put in, I feel like I always have to say, because that element of the fan base gets a lot of attention, that is a tiny slice of my experience online with the fan base. 95% of my experience over the past two years with Star Wars fans has been wonderful and lovely. And not to say that all of them even love the movie, but they're engaged and open to intelligent conversation about it and passionate about it in a way that I always feel like I have to put that forward. We can't let that small slice define Star Wars fans, I think. No, I think that makes sense.

And I think you've always been really thoughtful about this stuff. It's a tribute to you that you're still on the internet. Well, I'm not a martyr. I wouldn't be on there if I wasn't having a good time, which again speaks to the, again, the numbers of the positive

far outweighs the negative. You know, if that wasn't literally true, I promise I would get off it tomorrow. Do you think it's good that the internet can influence filmmakers and the kind of films that are made? I feel like we're in kind of a complicated moment think it's good that the internet can influence filmmakers and the kind of films that are made? I feel like we're in kind of a complicated moment where it comes to that stuff, where there's a lot of attention paid to things like the Snyder Cut or like obviously the onslaught

of streaming services. And it feels like more and more filmmakers that I talk to have a consciousness about that. And I wonder what you think about what that's going to mean for the kinds of movies that we get in the future. I have no idea. I don't know. I know that I, I mean, yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I couldn't, I can't, I think the thing that motivate would, can motivate me to, you know, get off my ass and make something like I can't imagine it being something internet. I feel like it's got to come from a deeper well. It's got to be something that's interesting to you on kind of sort of a deeper level.

But then obviously, you know, I am like a lot of us. I'm on the internet a lot. I'm sure it's having an effect. So I don't know. I feel like it's also maybe something we won't really be able to tell or pick apart until, you know, 20 years from now. Look back and analyze it. It's probably true. Have you started writing anything else? No, I've just been traveling with this movie. I need to kind of figure out what's next and dive into it.

Do you feel like you're going to focus primarily on theatrically released films? Well, I mean, there's so much good stuff going on in TV. And my producer, Ram, and I, we just started this company to kind of try and produce some stuff more and more in the TV space. I love movies. I love endings. That's the main reason I love movies. I love endings. And I feel like even in a great TV series, it's not about the ending, you know, like the best a great TV series can do is not ruin what came before before it with a with an ending like it's but it's never about how it ties up um and for me something about the beautiful shape of a you know of a contained experience of one movie that you can hold in your head like a you know like a crystal object and examine from all the different sides there's something wonderful about that so i i and i love the theatrical experience so ram and i we, we're kind of going to keep plugging away and see how long we can keep it going and making movies for theatrical release.

I don't think this is a spoiler. And if it is, you tell me and we'll take it out. All right. Speaking of endings, I wanted to ask you about the Rolling Stones' needle drop at the end. It surprised me. It's one of my favorite songs ever. Why that song? Why did you choose that, Oh, yeah, I had that song in my head while I was writing for the ending. That was always a song that I would listen to and get excited about the ending of the movie. And I don't, there was just something about it that made sense.

There's, you know, because the lyrics don't directly apply, but they play a little bit to it. And mostly though, I feel like tonally, it was setting a goalpost for myself. It was, if this works at the end of the movie, it means it makes sense that we're ending the movie with a party, you know, that we're throwing

the party at the end. And I want the audience to go out, smile the way that I feel when I listen to that track, which is smiling, bobbing my head and just kind of groovy, you know, and setting that as a goalpost for how I want the audience to feel at the end of this movie, I think was maybe a useful thing. That's so great. I agree. It doesn't literally make sense, but emotionally, it's so perfect. Yeah, there's something about it.

And I've had, for all the movies I've done before, I've had specific songs in my head for the endings, and I've never used them. They've never ended up being right. Very specific things where it's similar. I'm listening to it over and over and imagining the ending of the movie. And then we get in the edit room and we do it and there's something else that works better. Interesting. Have you, did you write a lot of endings for Knives Out? No, no. Just the one? Well, yeah, because I didn't, you know, the way I work, I work really structurally. So I start with like the skeleton. I start very abstract with like this story shape. So it's not like I'm starting with, what if it was this person in the conservatory with a knife? And no, or what if I'm starting kind of more satellite map than that? And then I zoom in bit by bit. So the way I construct it, it's not like I'm trying out different endings.

Interesting. Yeah, because I feel like Clue has kind of poisoned our brain in that way. A, B, C. I'm going home to sleep with my wife. Exactly. Exactly. If you could pick one movie to program a double feature with Knives Out, what would you pick?

And it does not have to be a whodunit if you don't want it to be. Oh, boy. God. The one that I would think tonally might make the most sense is Death on the Nile, but I would probably program Last of Sheila just because I want more and more people to see that

movie. It's such a crazy movie. It's got the crazy 70s cat. Any movie where Richard Benjamin is the lead, you just automatic got to love. And James Coburn and his thin turtleneck shirts and super hot young Ian McShane in it. It's just like Raquel Welsh, Diane Cannon. Holy crap, man, that movie. Yeah, when Scott and Larry were here, I don't think I had realized that Sondheim and Anthony Perkins wrote that movie. That's why I have the Sondheim nod in Knives Out. That's why, I don't know if you caught, but Daniel Craig is singing Losing My Mind at some point from Follies. Had to get a Sondheim reference in there.

And I'm sure they told you the whole thing about how Sondheim is a murder mystery nut. Yes. Did you know that the Laurence Olivier character in Sleuth, based on maybe apocryphal, but based on Sondheim? Yes. And the one play, the one non-musical play that Sondheim ever wrote is a whodunit. Oh, I don't know it. What is it?

Is it called Getting Away with Murder? It's called something like that. Yeah. It ran for like two weeks. It was not a hit. That's why he didn't write any more plays, I guess. Maybe, yeah. Why are we having a Sondheim moment?

Have you given this much thought? You know. You're not the first movie this year to have a Sondheim moment. Well, and then last year, Lady Bird had, you know, had merrily woven through it. I think every moment's a Sondheim moment. I don't know. I feel like I want the more Sondheim, the better. But I'm not sure why it is.

You're right. It feels like he's in. He's in our consciousness. He's in the conversation right now. And there's, I mean, look, I'm a huge Sondheim nut. So, look, as much as we can inject him in the conversation, the better. Ryan, we end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they've seen. Have you been able to see things as you've been on the tour?

Yeah, I've managed to kind of – yeah, I have. I manage – you know what I do? I keep – because my memory is so bad. I keep a little diary of everything. I use just like one of these diary apps. Yeah. And I keep track of everything that I saw. You got to publish that like Soderbergh.

Oh, I don't know about that. Maybe. People would love that. I've seen some good stuff recently, actually. We watched, on a friend's recommendation, we watched the Italian movie. I knew her well. I saw it. It's a crazy Italian comedy from the 60s.

It's shot in like that beautiful black and white, like eight and a half bits. It's a wild, wild movie. I've seen some really good stuff. The Irishman, Little Women, I got to see a screening of. It's fantastic. Pretty amazing.

Yeah, Greta was here last week. You know what I watched on a plane recently that I just cracked up at? I thought it was great. It's Game Night. I don't know how I missed Game Night. It's really funny. Not so far.

That would also be a pretty good double feature. That's true, actually. The energy of that movie is kind of similar. That's really true. It's got that kind of, you know, real stakes, but still a little madcap. Exactly. Oh, my God. Jesse Plones in that movie just killed me.

Unbelievable. He's so funny. Oh, my God. He's so funny. Oh, God. Olivia is the name of that dog. She was in Widows also. Oh, god, he's so funny. Olivia is the name of that dog. She was in Widows also. Oh yeah, that's right. It's the same fluffy white dog. Thank you for that dog.

Oh my god. I want to do a Widows spinoff called Detective Olivia. Because she solves the crime. She's sniffing at the door. She knows it's him. It's true. She knew it the whole time. She's also kind of the MacGuffin in Game Night, you know, being covered in, you know, without her, we don't get

him at the end. I'm telling you, Detective Olivia coming to Disney Plus next year. Maybe we can get a Knives Out crossover with Olivia. Let's do it. Come on. Ryan, thanks for doing this, man. Thanks a lot. I appreciate it. Thank you to Ryan Johnson and thank you, of course, to Amanda Dobbins. Please tune in tomorrow where we will have a second episode of The Big Picture.

No episode later in the week. Tomorrow we'll be talking about a very special subject, which is the best movies of the decade. Tune in and listen with your whole family on Thanksgiving. See you then.